Channel 8 show puts Taiwan Flag over mainland China

The ‘One-China policy’ is a tricky issue when it comes to sovereignty in China and Taiwan.

For the uninitiated, basically, Beijing considers Taiwan to be a Chinese province and not an independent state, and renounces any form of talk that says otherwise.

Countries and corporations that want to work in or with China are obliged to tread carefully on this topic, and our leaders insist that Singapore has “consistently abided by the ‘One China policy'”.

Which is why, Mediacorp might have just committed a very major faux pas.

Screengrab of Trailer of My Star Guide. Source: Channel 8

The above image is a screengrab from the show My Star Guide (我的导游是明星), a popular travel show that airs on Channel 8 where a Mediacorp artiste doubles as a tour guide for Singaporean tourists visiting foreign lands.

And…the Taiwan flag is superimposed on China’s geographical shape in the background.

For a mainland Chinese, this could be quite offending, as it might imply that the mainland China actually belongs to Taiwan.

Commentors of the show have speculated the reasoning behind making such a trailer.

Some stated that the show could be trying to imply that Taiwan and China are ‘not ‘separate’, but rather one entity.

However, this begs the question – why not have used China’s flag on Taiwan instead?

Regardless, it was probably not the most politically correct move the broadcasting company, as well as Chan Brothers, who sponsors the show, could have done.

At the time of writing, all online forms of the trailer has been taken down from the Chan Brothers’ Facebook page.

Check out the original video here:

UPDATE (15/3/18): Mediacorp has since apologised for its mistake. Read the full apology here: